Instabilities in a Two-Dimensional Combustion Model with Free Boundary

We prove instability of the planar travelling wave solution in a two-dimensional free boundary problem modelling the propagation of near- equidiffusional premixed flames in the whole plane. We reduce the problem to a fixed boundary fully nonlinear parabolic system. The spectrum of the linearized operator contains an interval [0,ω ^c ], ω ^c > 0, so we cannot construct backward solutions. We use an argument about stability of dynamical systems in Banach spaces in order to prove pointwise instability of the moving front. (Accepted: January 31, 2000)?Published online August 21, 2000